


I Will Talk and Hollywood Will Listen

by AndreaLyn



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-08
Updated: 2013-09-08
Packaged: 2017-12-26 00:26:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/959382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndreaLyn/pseuds/AndreaLyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They don't bring in movie stars to up the morale. David Kenyon Webster (Hollywood's darling) is serving with Easy Company and Liebgott doesn't even realize until much later.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Will Talk and Hollywood Will Listen

Liebgott didn’t recognize him without the white scarf.  
  
Months later, he’ll wake up and realize he’s been an asshole for being so stubborn to the other guys – insisting it couldn’t be  _him_  and why the fuck would he even be there in the first place. Having epiphanies in Bastogne isn’t exactly the best place to do it, but one day Liebgott wakes up in the bitter chill after a twenty minute sleep and he’s got it.  
  
“Fuck,” he swears with a growl under his breath. “It really was him, wasn’t it?”  
  
Luz looks over from where he’s hunched over, trying to enjoy a cigarette past his trembling fingers and gives Liebgott a look like he’s really and truly sorry for his lack of a brain. “Hey, Joe,” Luz calls over. “What’s going on? You giving me a deathbed confession to me, cuz I ain’t no confessor. Hey! Skip!”  
  
“Georgie?”  
  
“Liebgott needs someone to tell his dirty laundry to!”  
  
“You hold on, Liebgott, I’m coming to save your soul!” Skip calls over, Penkala piping up that he’s not missing this for the world.  
  
And then the world falls apart in a mess of mortar and blood, Liebgott learns that he’s got better things to do than spend his time thinking about idols when they’re all just  _men_  here, and they’re marched into Haguenau. He’s got better things to think about other than white scarves. Nothing is that pure here. Everything is grime and carries the faint sting of hopelessness.  
  
And that’s where they meet up again.  
  


* * *

  
  
Back in Aldbourne, it’d just been a nasty little rumor that worked its way around the camp. Hell, Liebgott thought maybe they were just trying to boost morale by telling them that David Webster was actually in their midst. “What next,” Liebgott wisecracks as he leans over to let Shifty light his cigarette for him, the flame at the end of his match flickering precariously, “Rita Hayworth’s gonna be our new nurse, cuz I got an itch that needs real scratching.”  
  
Thing is, Web was supposedly with Fox Company.   
  
Liebgott and the rest of the boys in Easy never so much as get a good look at anyone else unless they’re out in the woods, getting lost as a result of Sobel’s incompetence. No one in Easy has had any goddamn amount of time to see if they’re just talking out of their asses. And besides, it didn’t look like anyone in the camp was getting preferential treatment.  
  
“I’m telling you,” Liebgott says, when he and Malarkey and some of the other boys are hanging around the tents and waiting for the rain to clear, “it’s all a bunch of horseshit.”  
  
He’s still feeling like the whole thing’s a pretty fairytale they’re cooking up to try and boost morale when he bumps forcibly into a guy about his height with blue eyes and curly dark hair. His mouth’s hanging open and he looks  _new_.  
  
Sure, there’s worse offenses in the world, but as far as Liebgott’s concerned, you might as well have shot a man if you’re gonna hang around and look new.  
  
“You’re not gonna figure out what to do standing there with your jaw a mile wide,” Liebgott says snidely, shoving the guy forcibly aside to get to the mess before dinner’s gone and he can’t even get his share of the crap they’re serving today.  
  
He glances back just the once, long enough to see the affronted look on Pretty Boy’s face.  
  
Liebgott smirks in genuine delight at getting a rise out of someone. Yeah, he’s gonna earn more blisters than he knows what to do with when he’s running Currahee, but it’s still good to know that he hasn’t been worn down by training to the point that his tongue isn’t as sharp as the razors he uses to give the guys a shave for a pretty penny.   
  


* * *

  
  
Liebgott is doing what he does best when he runs across David Kenyon Webster after Bastogne. He’s always had a big mouth and the war’s only done that much more to take the worst qualities in him and put them on display for everyone to see. He’s so loud, he’s practically a megaphone, and so when Web comes back from the hospital after so long away, all Liebgott cares is that this is a guy who wasn’t there for Bastogne.  
  
“Hey, Web,” he says, hanging out on one of the supply trucks, smoking his cigarette lazily as if making it last gives him a couple more good minutes in the day. “Real nice of you to come back now that the weather’s taken a turn for the better.”  
  
At first, Web ignores him.   
  
And see, Liebgott’s never taken well to being ignored either. He gets louder, more vehement, and angrier. He’s just so goddamn angry with the whole world for being such a pain in his ass. There’s no sense to it. The war keeps raging on and good people get taken away from them while others just linger at the hospital.   
  
“There a lot of pretty nurses there for you to fuck, huh?” Liebgott demands, voice raw and harsh as he jumps off the back of the truck and pushes at Web’s shoulder, getting him pinned up against an alley wall. “I get that you got shot, really, Web, I do. But you should’ve come back. Joe Toye did.”  
  
“And where’s Joe Toye now?” Web asks quietly, his voice wavering just slightly, like Liebgott is scaring him. It’s like bullets and bombs and fires and monstrosities haven’t done the job. Joe Liebgott is scarier than the whole war combined to Web. Liebgott takes personal victory in that. “My leg was messed up. I healed. Now, I’m back.”  
  
“You want a party or something? Maybe we can ask the Germans to give us a break so we can put up some balloons for you,” Liebgott says snidely. “Maybe we’ll even get you a streamer and a present. In fact, I got one for you already. They want a patrol and they need a translator. You speak German,  _don’t you,_  Web?” he asks, finishing off in the mother tongue.  
  
Web’s glaring back at him with enough fury to set a forest on fire and he shoves at Liebgott to push him off. “Who’s asking for volunteers?”  
  
“This is Winters’ show, but Speirs, Speirs is probably calling the shots,” Liebgott says, taking in the sight of Web without a speck of grime on his face with those blue eyes and that rugged jaw line.   
  
Web looks to the river and Liebgott gets to drink in the sight of his profile and that’s about when it hits him. He’s been manhandling a goddamn movie star this whole time.   
  
It feels like Liebgott’s world got taken forcibly by some kind of deity and tilted until he can’t recognize it. He hates that it’s not the first time it’s happened during this war and it probably won’t be the last. “Holy shit, it really is you.”  
  
Web doesn’t react much.  
  
He purses his lips together and keeps his attention on the river, but Liebgott can see the way his spine stiffens slightly. “All this time, I thought you knew. I thought that’s why you hated me,” he says, his voice low and steady.   
  
He walks off in the direction of the house Headquarters have co-opted for their purposes, leaving Liebgott to figure out how to tell Web that he doesn’t hate the man – that’s just _who he is_. Even if he’d known that Web was the same man who starred in all those flicks he used to take women to – that dapper young star with the white scarf and the perfect locks of hair that Joe’s had about three too many inappropriate dreams about – he’d still be the same.  
  
He’d still just act like Joey Liebgott.  
  
He doesn’t get a chance to talk to Web about it until the patrols are done and they’re left watching the German army fall apart in all the various towns they plow their way through. Funny enough, Liebgott doesn’t get a chance to talk to Web until the night they’re screening  _It Happened One Funny Day_  in one of the tents on the outskirts of town – Web’s last movie before he joined the war machine.   
  
Webster’s sitting outside smoking a cigarette in the dark and Liebgott’s running late for the flick.  
  
“What’s the matter?” Liebgott cracks, sinking down beside Web and stealing his cigarette to steal a couple of puffs before resigning himself to finding his own. “You don’t like watching that pretty face of yours on the screen kissing Lana Turner?”  
  
He gets no reply. For a while, Liebgott thinks he’s not gonna get any kind of reply, but then Web starts talking so low that Liebgott has to lean in to hear him.   
  
“I decided that I was joining up two weeks into production.”  
  
“Well, hip hip hoorah,” Liebgott says sarcastically. “It must be a hard life for you. You’re rich, you’re famous. You can do whatever the fuck you want and you deign to sink down to our level? Huh? Is that it? Could’ve been an officer with all your money, but you’re years into the war and you’re still a private.” The more Liebgott speaks, the angrier he gets, and it grows to the point that he’s not sure who he’s shouting at, any longer. He’s not sure why he’s raging against Webster when the real enemy is sitting across the river, probably watching a flick of their own. “You came down to the trenches so that you could get shot at and nearly killed. Are you happy? Are you happy you’re risking your life every day?”  
  
Webster turns to look at him, his face fraught with confusion and grief. “No,” he says, almost immediately. “No, I’m not  _happy_  about any of this,” he insists with severe determination. “But I would never trade it in because I’ve met men like you and Major Winters and Captain Speirs. Do you really think that the people I knew before this could have held a candle to your bravery and courage? Do you think I’ve ever met a man like Malarkey before, who could keep going even when his heart is splintered into so many pieces that it’s a wonder he’s still going? No, Joe. No.  _You’re all singular and I love each of you_.”   
  
His smile turns sad and he casts a look over his shoulder, watching the black and white film on the screen for a few moments before he turns back to his smoking compatriot.   
  
“Some of you more than others,” he finally says, his voice hushed.   
  
“ _Some_?” Liebgott asks, his gaze tipped low to the muddy ground surrounding them. The sky never seems to clear as if the heavens are aware of the suffering and can’t find it fit to give them the sun when so much mourning must happen.   
  
He must be awfully fucking transparent because Web softens and reaches over to pry the cigarette from Liebgott’s lips, his thumb brushing against Liebgott’s lower lip in a soft slide as he does it. “Of course, you,” he confirms.   
  
“When you go home,” Liebgott says, trying to talk like the war’s already over and they’re all bound to make it out of there even though Jackson is example enough that the fighting’s far from done, “are you gonna go back to being a movie star?”  
  
“I don’t know,” Webster admits, suddenly close in Liebgott’s space, his perfect blue eyes lowered and attentive of Liebgott’s mouth. “Maybe. I don’t know that I would know how to go back to such frivolity. Maybe I’ll write, instead. Maybe I’ll write about this war and try and sell it to the studios so they can’t paint over the atrocities.”  
  
“I don’t want you to write about what we’re doing. Can’t you just go back and be a normal guy, like the rest of us?”  
  
Webster’s look is almost pitiful. “Are any of us actually normal, anymore?”  
  
It’s Webster who takes the cigarette from Liebgott’s hands and crushes it with his heel, cupping Liebgott’s face with both hands and leaning in for a slow kiss that speaks of experience and sadness all at once. Liebgott knows that this man has kissed a dozen women – and is probably doing that on the screen behind them at any moment now – but he still leans forward and steals every last morsel of intimacy that he can grasp at.   
  
Liebgott’s breathless by the time Webster eases away.   
  
He doesn’t even have time to say something before the tent flaps are opened quickly and Christenson and O’Keefe step out in the direction of one of the houses. Liebgott swallows back the dozen things he wants to say and watches as Webster walks off into the dark of the night.  
  


* * *

  
  
Months after the war is over and Liebgott has made his way back to society to do his best to hide amongst the masses, he finds himself in a theatre. He’s come in for no other reason than the poster outside announcing that David Kenyon Webster returns from the ampitheatre of war. His fucking white scarf is back and it’s spotless.  
  
Somehow, that makes Liebgott angrier than anything.   
  
He doesn’t pay. He gives the ticket-attendant one look and tells him that he fought a war for this country before forcing his way inside. Either no one cares or no one wants to take him on and Liebgott doesn’t waste time trying to read between the lines.  
  
He watches Webster for two hours on the screen and when he goes home, he feels betrayed.   
  
He deliberately badmouths Webster to every Easy vet that he talks to for the next two months, right up until the day that a package arrives for Liebgott – bulky, yet light. It comes with an elegantly written note.  
  
 _I’ve heard what you were saying. This wasn’t my first choice, but no one wanted to hear my words and I have to get by, somehow. I miss the men, some of them more than others. I’m sure you understand what I’m saying.  
  
Sincerely,  
  
David Kenyon Webster_  
  
Inside the package is a white scarf made dirty by age and good use. It’s frayed at the ends and looks as though it hasn’t seen much care and attention. Another small piece of paper floats out of the package while Liebgott is drawing out the lengths of the scarf. He picks it up after wrapping it comfortably around his neck and reads it with a fond smile.  
  
 _This reminds me of you_.   
  
Maybe Liebgott smiles a little easier after that. Maybe he’s a little kinder when he talks to Ramirez and Christenson. Maybe, just maybe, he’s starting to find just a sliver of hope after a storm of despair. 


End file.
